Screening for language difficulties in disadvantaged populations on entry to early years education: challenges and opportunities

Children from areas of social disadvantage experience delays in their language development, with significant numbers of children entering nursery classes with limited oral language skills. These difficulties are exacerbated when a child’s home language is not the language of instruction. This causes challenges for early years practitioners in developing the classroom language learning environment and in targeting resources for the children. There is a need for teachers to access tools to profile children’s language skills to inform their practice. Parent completed measures provide a viable means of assessing oracy skills on entry to nursery school. We examined the feasibility and validity of using a modified parental completed language checklist in areas of social disadvantage as an indicator of children’s language skills as they enter nursery classes